Lynne Graham: Emerald Mistress

That devastating news had been delivered with tasteless hilarity in front of an appreciative audience of his father’s closest associates.

‘There can be no sentiment in business,’ Valente had explained when the father of Rafael’s best friend had shot himself over a deal that went wrong the week after Valente reneged on it. ‘I look after me and, as long as you are loyal, I look after you. That’s it . Family and friends don’t count unless I get something out of it.’

Not long afterwards Rafael had received a lecture on the respective values of abortion, denial and intimidation in respect of unplanned pregnancies. That ironic recollection almost made Rafael smile for the first time in days. Valente had fathered a child in Ireland, during a brief encounter with the widow who had once acted as the caretaker at his wife’s ancestral home, Flynn Court. Now Rafael had a half-sister, a lively fifteen-year-old girl with a brash, mouthy manner and big scared Cavaliere eyes. He’d been paying for her education at select boarding schools for almost the last four years. It wasn’t a sentimental attachment, though. There was always purpose in Rafael’s actions. His generosity had embarrassed and enraged his father and done his own image no harm whatsoever in the eyes of the once suspicious locals in Ballyflynn.

He tossed a copy of a faded photo of his mother and the neglected Flynn Court into the grave with Valente. May she haunt you through purgatory and hell, he urged grimly…

* * *

At Saskia’s command, Harriet finished work earlier than she’d expected and went home. By then she was fully aware that, with Zenco about to go down, her career would divebomb with it. In the short term a period of unemployment would not create a serious problem for her as she was financially secure, she reasoned, striving to be upbeat. But Luke, who was always cautious, would undoubtedly decide that setting a date for their wedding was out of the question.

Harriet tried not to think about the prospect of another couple of years spent concealing her secret addiction to bridal magazines and smiling with valiant unconcern when people asked when the big day would be. She would have cut off her arm sooner than let Luke guess just how keen she was to buy into marriage and eventually motherhood, because she did not want him to feel under pressure. But they had been together five years and engaged for two; at twenty-eight she was ready for the next step.

Once home, she listened to a message on her answering machine.

Alice’s beautifully modulated speaking tones, honed to an aristocratic edge by her expensive education, filled the room. ‘I thought we could do lunch…but obviously you’re off doing your big business bit somewhere. Shame! Catch you another time. I’m off to Nice tonight.’

Harriet suppressed a disappointed sigh just as the doorbell sounded. Lunching with her glitzy kid sister and hearing all about her wonderfully exciting life was always entertaining.

It was Juliet, the pneumatic blonde glamour model who lived across the hall. ‘I’m moving out this evening.’

‘My goodness, that’s sudden—’

‘I’m off to Europe with my bloke and I have a favour to ask…’ Juliet, who never came to Harriet’s door for any other reason, displayed perfect teeth in an expectant smile. ‘You have such a soft heart, and you’re fantastic with animals. Would you give Samson a home?’

Harriet blinked in dismay. Samson was Juliet’s chihuahua, purchased as a girlie fashion accessory when the film Legally Blonde had been in vogue. Harriet realised she’d not seen the little dog since another resident had reminded Juliet of the no-pets clause in her rental agreement. ‘I didn’t know you still had him.’

‘He’s been living a life of luxury in a posh pet hotel and costing me a bloody fortune,’ Juliet lamented. ‘But I don’t have time to sell him.’

‘I’m sorry—I can’t help.’ Harriet hardened her heart against the thought of poor neglected Samson and felt very much like shaking his feckless owner until her pearly teeth rattled in her selfish head. ‘Couldn’t the kennels find another home for him?’

‘No, they’d rather hang on to him to make more dosh out of me!’ Juliet wailed accusingly. ‘You’ve got to help me with this. Danny’s picking me up in less than an hour!’

‘I’m afraid I don’t have anywhere to keep a dog either.’ Harriet steeled herself not to surrender to the blonde’s steamrolling personality; Luke was not a dog lover, and had vehemently objected when she had once taken care of Samson over a weekend.

An hour and a half later, having changed into a blue dress that was a particular favourite of Luke’s, Harriet was on the way over to his flat with the intention of surprising him—his conference would have ended by now. She clutched the ingredients of an oriental stir-fry; he loved her cooking. Would it be manipulative to feed him before she mentioned the giant black cloud hovering on her career horizon? Her scrupulous conscience twanged. She was also being haunted by an image of Samson, small enough to sit in pint jug, being bullied by other larger dogs in some gloomy canine holiday home. But the chihuahua was not her responsibility, she reminded herself hurriedly. Luke got really irritated when she plunged headfirst into helping other people solve their problems.

She let herself into his ultra modern apartment and went straight down the hall and into the kitchen. A burst of giggling from the open plan living-cum-bedroom area made her still in surprise. She moved to the door.

‘We called her Porky Pie when we were kids,’ a familiar female voice was saying. ‘Ma was so ashamed of Harriet that she once pretended that she was the housekeeper’s child. She was plump, and she talked with a horrible country bumpkin accent. She might have slimmed down since then, but she’s still got a fat face and a bum the width of a combine harvester.’

Harriet was welded to the spot by astonishment. What was Alice doing in Luke’s apartment, and why was her sister saying such horrible things about her? Was she trying to amuse Luke? Once or twice she had heard Alice being cruelly sarcastic and funny at the expense of others, but had put it down to immaturity since the girl was six years her junior.

‘Alice,’ Luke chided, in an inexcusably indulgent tone.

‘“My name is Porky Pie and I am so boring. I talk about recipes and am so desperate to be liked that I am a total pathetic doormat to everyone around me,”’ Alice proclaimed, mimicking Harriet’s burr well enough for her shaken victim to wince and turn even paler as she moved forward hurriedly to reveal her presence before anything more could be said. ‘Would you prefer a slice of my chocolate cake or another shag, babes?’

‘Do you need to ask? Open those beautiful legs…’

Harriet’s own lower limbs set like lead beneath her. Her stomach churned like a whirlpool while she stared across the spacious stretch of polished wood flooring in utter disbelief. Luke was lying back on the bed stark naked and he was pulling her equally naked half-sister down on top of him! Giggling with carefree abandon, her pale blonde silky hair rippling across her slim tanned shoulders, Alice moved straight into a much more intimate pose with the ease of habit and confidence.

‘I love your dainty little boobs…’ Luke groaned with pleasure, stretching up greedy hands to the pert mounds jutting over him as Alice arched her spine with taunting sexiness.

Harriet was frozen to the spot in sheer shock at the graphic scene before her. ‘Not like mine…’ she heard herself say flatly, and out loud, her own voice sounding curiously detached and lifeless to her ears.

The lovers froze with an immediacy that might have been comic in other circumstances. Luke reared up off the pillows. ‘Harriet?’